Water to Fuel to Water
Posted: Thu Sep 05, 2013 5:40 am
Hello, I completed the experiment Water to Fuel to Water from Science Buddies and am getting information ready to present at my science fair. I have some questions regarding the experiment. Is what we created with the materials considered to be a simple fuel cell? It did not say so anywhere in on the site or with the info that came along with the experiment, but it seems to be one. I don't want to present it as a fuel cell at my fair if it isn't actually one. Someone told me that a fuel cell is just for storing hydrogen and oxygen then burning them together so I don't know if this could be one -- we are not storing the hydrogen in this experiment, right? On the experiment page on this site it does say : "In this science project, you will explore a cutting-edge method for storing renewable energy by breaking up water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen and oxygen are fuels that can be burned in devices such as fuel cells to produce clean electricity when it is dark!" How is this storing renewable energy if we're simply creating it and producing energy immediately or how can this show it? It also says that the objective of the experiment is -- Examine water's usefulness as a renewable energy source by observing how efficient a cobalt-based catalyst can be at helping to form molecular oxygen." So what exactly am I showing in this experiment? How hydrogen can be stored? Or just how water can be split using a catalyst? By creating a fuel cell? I understand all concepts of splitting water, hydrogen fuel, how a catalyst can enhance the efficiency of the splitting, just not sure how this all ties into hydrogen storage and fuel.